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Thursday, 28 January 2016

What advice would you give your younger self?

Today is Yakult's 20th Birthday and they have commissioned research into what advice us Brit's would give our younger selves. It got me thinking. What would my advice be?

Twenty years ago I was a carefree Chemistry student who should have probably been socialising less and studying more.

I would tell my younger self to trust my instincts and not listen to others so much. I had a number of jobs I hated, but was talked into. I knew I wanted to teach, but everyone told me not to.

"The money is rubbish."

"Teenagers are horrible why would you want to teach 30?"

Both statements I regularly heard when I said I was thinking of teacher training. I got there eventually but I could have saved myself a lot of time and rubbish jobs if I had just trusted my instincts.

I would tell myself to worry less about money and travel more. There are so many places I haven't seen, and now I have three kids in tow it is harder and much more expensive to see the world. But don't worry, I am not going to let that stop me.

I would tell myself not to fear childbirth. That you don't need half the things that are marketed for babies and most of all I would tell myself not to buy a cream shaggy rug when I had just had a baby. What was I thinking!?!

But does the rest of the nation agree with me according to Yakult's findings? Well there are certainly some similarities.

The top five pieces of advice people would have given their younger selves are:

Save money from a young age (53.25%)

Have more self-belief (48.10%)

Do more exercise (38.35%)

Travel more – there’s a whole world to explore (34.55%)

Don’t smoke (32.10%)

Sonya Hayden, a spokesperson for Yakult said, “Landmark birthdays make us all think about our past as well as the future. While building up savings and travelling more features heavily in our research, it is clear that doing little things every day to take care of ourselves also has a big impact on our lifestyles.” Every bottle of Yakult contains at least 6.5 billion of theseLactobacillus caseiShirota bacteria which are scientifically proven to reach the gut alive. It is also gluten and fat free as well as being suitable for vegetarians.